Note 1353 — Chapter VIII · (continued 2)

In the Secret Journals, the Articles of Confederation, proposed by Franklin on the 21st of July, 1775, are printed in full. I have had occasion to refer to them because an offensive and defensive alliance with the Six Nations is proposed in them. In the "Advertisement" to the edition of the Secret Journals which is cited, the publishers say that these Articles "have never before been published." In the Gentleman's Magazine (xlv. p. 572) a "Plan of the American Confederacy" is given. This plan is copy of Franklin's proposed Articles of Confederation, with a preamble addressed to the Provincial Congress of North Carolina, and was apparently received from that colony. In connection with this, see Bancroft (viii. p. 97). In the Scot's Magazine (Edinburgh, 1775, xxxvii. p. 665) these Articles were copied from the Gentleman's Magazine, with this comment: "The copy from whence this was printed was addressed particularly to the Province of North Carolina; but the same was without doubt submitted to the consideration of every other Provincial Congress, as the preamble clearly shows." The preamble thus referred to reads: "The Provincial Congress of —— are to view the following Articles as a subject which will be proposed to the Continental Congress at their next session." These two magazines publish the Articles as a mere submission of a plan. When the proposed Articles of Confederation reached the Annual Register they became "Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union entered into by the several colonies of New Hampshire, &c., &c., in General Congress met at Philadelphia, May 20, 1775" (Annual Register, 1775, p. 253). These Articles were also published as if they had been adopted in The History of the British Empire, etc. By a Society of Gentlemen. (Printed for Robert Campbell & Co., Philadelphia, 1798, 2 vols.: i. p. 188, note.) They are also given as Articles of Confederation, etc., entered into, etc., May 20, 1775, in An Impartial History of the War in America, etc., Boston, 1781, Appendix to vol. i. p. 410.